Time-Dependent Effects in Chronic Urticaria: A Time-Series Perspective of Omalizumab Treatment.

AIMS: The present study aims at analyzing CU score with respect to time, as a time-series. We have attempted to model the investigated time-series in order to unravel possible causative relationships. BACKGROUND: Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU, or CU) is a disease that significantly affects the quality of life of patients. It is a chronic disease and requires a specialized approach to diagnosis and treatment. In recent years, the disease has been of great interest due to the existence of new targeted therapeutic approaches. OBJECTIVE: Time series were produced by assessing the patient's CU score. Urticaria score was assessed on the basis of Urticaria Activity Score 7 (UAS7), according to the proposed guidelines. METHOD: 108 patients (25Males/83Females) admitted to our department were diagnosed with CU. CU was estimated on score basis, which was used in order to define disease severity. The mean CU score, the mean CU score rate with respect to the first month at diagnosis as well as the monthly CU score rate were calculated. RESULT: Gender is a factor that influences CU score with respect to time. In addition, there was a significant finding that time-series were different with respect to the administration of monotherapy or complementary therapy. CONCLUSION: We have found that females are more prone to CU, while omalizumab monotherapy has more beneficial results as compared to the application of concurrent and maintenance therapies. Further on, patients with co-morbidities were more likely to interrupt therapy. Finally, and most significantly, it was shown that monthly CU score rate manifested an oscillatory pattern, which was modelled with sum of sines functions, hinting towards a relative immunological pattern.